That Time I Dated a Thief

CHAPTER 3: SEE? I'M NOT NORMAL

LUKE O'REILLY

Unbelievable.

Anyone else who'd just found out they'd been pegged for a fake and a con and for stealing a laptop would be over here in three nanoseconds.

Not this girl. Instead, 30 minutes after our call, I get this message:

Shillin, I'm sorry I hung up on you. Your phone call freaked me out a bit. Truth is, I'm not Blu. My kid sister is. It's her art on DeviantArt. My parents and I just help her promote it because she's too young to deal with trolls and all that social media stuff. I'm sooooo sorry about your laptop. No excuses. It was a terrible thing to do, she's just always wanted a drawing tablet and we haven't been able to afford her one. I will get it off her as soon as she's back from her friend's place. If you do happen to want to sell it, we would pay you the full price for it. She's loved it so much. But of course, totally understand if not. Ava. x

Wow. What an impressive, verging-on-genius load of bull. For a full minute I almost believe it; almost find myself feeling sorry for this poor kid who's thrilled with her new laptop and her older sister who wants to protect her from trolls.

But then I want to slap myself. I know she's lying and it makes me see red. She's got no clue what she's dealing with and no clue of the potential trouble I'm in and she's got the nerve to offer to buy the thing off me.

Brainiac Bart, our Dutch aerospace uni student, wants to take her down immediately - hack into her profile and post a bunch of crazy messages from her on there. But we haven't got the laptop back yet and her reputation is my main bargaining chip. If I can keep things civil, all the better.

I've got a different image of her in my head at the moment. I'm imagining some hardcore gamer who's into right-wing conspiracy theories and sucks down ciggies like they're attached to an oxygen tank. Wears her hair scraped back in a long thin pony tail. Dunno why I'm picturing all that, maybe it's that hoarse voice of hers.

AVA BURNS:

"Ugh, I hate this place." I'm looking at the grim row of house boats that line the bank across the canal from Cafe Sound Garden.

"Now now." Jess says. "Just look at that water sparkling."

I look at the water on the canal. It's rippling and glinting in the wake of a huge barge covered in young Dutchies. Big-boned, bronze-skinned. Unnaturally white teeth. It's all that milk and cheese, it has to be.

Jess is my closest friend and co-sufferer of the British School of Amsterdam. She looks like Olive from Pop Eye but has the opposite personality. She's from NYC and is fazed by nothing. She's got this funny way of talking, like she's impersonating someone who does actually care about stuff. 

Right now I need her to care though. I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown.

"You do know you're attracting even more attention to yourself by dressing like that," Jess says.

I'm wearing a black wig and a pair of transparent reading glasses I picked up just before meeting her. I want to be sure that if I run into Shillin he won't recognise me.

"You look like a serial killer. Like Rosemary West. What's the deal?" She tilts her head and says in a mocking voice, "Are you playing at being a private investigator?"

I don't answer because my notification on Deviant art has just gone off and I open it with a savage focus.

6k likes.

I squint and make doubly certain I'm seeing right. Yes, there's definitely a k. After a six month dip (during which I almost bled out and died from my wounds) I'm back in the game. And it's all thanks to a laptop that has to go back to its owner.